Happy Thanksgiving to all our readers!
While today is a designated day to give thanks for all the things we are blessed with, don’t forget that we can and should be thankful on a daily basis. Why not start your homeschool day each day by having everyone say what they are thankful for? It starts the day off right and everyone will be ready start into their work, grateful for the life they have.
Enjoy your day and have a great time with friends and family.
Tags: homeschool, thankful, Thanksgiving
In homeschooling, you often have to make decisions that you never considered before. One of these is holiday time. Obviously, you want to take some time off for the holidays, but how much?
In public schools, next week is either completely off or running on half days for Mon-Wed, then there is the long weekend. But what about if you homeschool?
The truth is that whatever works for your family is fine. However, you need to apply some common sense here, as well. For example, if your kids are just too hyper to work on math during the week before Christmas, you probably won’t get much done anyway, so why not take that time to work on holiday crafts and prepare for Christmas, instead?
Some families (mine did!) work right up to Christmas Eve, and then also the week between Christmas and New Year’s in order to get a jump start on the new year. It can mean that you get to finish sooner than school kids, which is always fun, or you can use this time to catch up. Just be sure not to totally ruin the holidays by asking your kids to work right up to Thanksgiving dinner!
Obviously, not everyone celebrates all holidays, but chances are you have some in there, so start thinking now about how much time you want to take off and how it will affect your classes in the new year.
Tags: holidays, homeschool, kids, school, time off
As parents, we would love to say that our children are perfect in every way, but the fact is that they aren’t always perfect. In fact, you probably get some back talk from time to time and if you have a homeschooled child . . . chances are you have been the recipient of some pretty nasty attitudes at least a few times.
Part of homeschooling is raising our children in the manner we want them to grow. It doesn’t matter if you’re Christian and raising them in a godly manner or if you are an atheist who wants their kids to behave respectfully, this is the time to teach them. Homeschooling provides us with the perfect opportunity to guide our children on the right path and there are a few things you can do to help curb those bad attitudes.
1. Identify the source. Kids tend to have bad attitude for a reason. Maybe your middle child feels he’s not getting enough attention. Maybe your youngest wants to be given more responsibility while your oldest feels she has too much. Or it could be something like the fact that something has changed in the house, dad’s away on a business trip, a new puppy came into the home or a baby was added to the family. Whatever it is, that attitude has a reason behind it.
If you can find out why your child is acting out, you can remedy the situation. It might be that you need to change some things around. While we can’t always accomodate our kids and their wants, respecting how they feel is a good way to teach them to respect others.
2. Set a good example. If you’ve got a bad attitude yourself and are complaining about things, don’t expect your kids to do what you say and not what you do. I recently experienced this first hand when I muttered something about lost keys and my 2 year old went up and yelled at his father for losing the keys! I realized then that I’ve been scolding my husband quite a bit about his tendency to lose things and I had a pretty bad attitude . . . something that was picked up by my kids.
Modeling a good attitude can bring about amazing changes in your homeschooling day. If you are eager to start school and study, your kids are going to pick up on that.
3. Talk it out. Not everything can be fixed by reasoning, but giving your child a chance to air his side of the story and then explaining why things are the way they are can mean a lot. Your kids will feel like they are being treated respectfully when you listen to their opinions. They might not be right, but hear them out and they may lose some of that resentment they feel.
Bad attitudes in homeschooling need to be addressed quickly. Since everyone is in the same house all day long, things can turn bad very quickly. Deal with the issues promptly and you will tend to live a lot happier.
We want the best for our children, so it’s not surprising that most parents wonder what the heck they’re doing at some point during their homeschool journey. If you’ve ever wondered “Am I doing it right?” You’re not alone!
When you start to wonder if you’re messing up big time, it’s a good idea to reexamine the reasons you started to homeschool in the first place. What was your main motivation? Has that changed at all? Sometimes we just need to remind ourselves of the original goals. If you decided that the public school wasn’t a good option, keep that in mind.
Another good idea is to look at other homeschoolers. Meet some people who are teaching their kids at home. The first thing you’ll notice is that no one educates their children the same way. If you want to be sure that you’re doing the right thing, then you need to look at your family and your kids’ needs. Each child is different, so they need the schooling tailored to them.
If you’re worried that your child isn’t learning enough, look into doing state exams to prove to yourself that your children are getting a good education. You’ll likely be surprised! Even if you aren’t, this will let you know which areas you need to improve in.
Tags: education, fear, homeschool, worry
Everyone has to learn the alphabet, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a boring endeavor. In fact, since this is often the first thing that you’ll be doing with your child when they start school, it should be lots of fun. So, if you are looking for something to make the ABC’s fun, here are a few ideas.
Outline in food. Draw the basic letter and then then have your child trace the line first with glue and then press beans, rice, pasta or other dry food onto the glue to create a fun letter. The fact they go over it several times will reinforce the letter shape in their minds.
Get coloring. There are some very cool coloring printables that you can get for free. These complex animal ones are really cool, though not very appropriate for younger kids . . . maybe have older kids color them and use them as visual reinforcement for the first graders. And for the younger set, these Sesame Street ABC printables are perfect.
Cut up magazines. You can have kids look for specific letter or pictures of things that start with a specific letter. Make collages out of all the things you can find for one letter.
Hold a scavenger hunt. Get kids to find an apple, a piece of art, an article of clothing, etc. Make a list for each letter of the alphabet and have them search out the items.
Still not sure about curriculum? Then you might want to take a look at this free alphabet curriculum that you can print right off your computer. No cost and there are some great activity ideas.
What are your favorite methods for teaching the alphabet? Why not share here and we can all learn something.
Tags: alphabet, homeschool, teaching
With a slew of holidays coming up, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Hannukkah and Christmas, you have a number of great learning opportunities at your fingertips. What could be better for a homeschooler than researching their favorite time of year?
Whether you celebrate these holidays or not, it can still be a great way to get kids learning about why these days have become so important in our culture. You can do this in a few different ways.
Research: Why not get your kids to work together on a presentation of their chosen holiday? They can look into the history of the day and see how it’s changed since its origin. You’ll find that most holidays are now drastically different than when they started out! If you celebrate, why not incorporate a few of the older traditions this year?
Stories: Add a language arts twist and have your kids write a story using what they’ve learned about the holiday. You can also assign storylines. What would a child of their age done 100 years ago for Christmas, for example.
Start new traditions: Maybe this is the year to change things. It may be that your kids decide on their own that Halloween is not worth celebrating when they realize what the origins are. Or maybe you will want to change the way you look at Christmas this year. Brainstorm with your kids to come up with some ideas for new traditions.
What’s your favorite holiday? Do you incorporate it into your homeschooling?
I’ve taught a few kids in my time who just weren’t interested in writing. Let’s face it, writing is HARD work for little kids. Holding the pencil the right way, forcing the lead to move the way you want it to . . . their little hands get strained quickly. And that’s not even counting all the thinking involved, to make sure you are actually writing what you want to write!
One of the tricks that I used when I was tutoring is to write monster menus. You can adapt this to anything, really, we did Fairy and Clown Menus, as well, depending on the child’s interests.
Basically, what you do is design a menu for a monster restaurant. What would they serve in a restaurant like this? Write numbers down the side, leaving plenty of room for writing. This is supposed to be a fun way to get your child interested in writing, so focusing on form and neatness might not be the first priority.
Next, brainstorm with your child to come up with some seriously disgusting dishes. Younger kids can just come out with the type of dish (Earthworm Pasta with Dog Snot Sauce), while older ones might want to add a description (exceptionally gritty earthworms tossed in sauce made of dog snot, sesame seeds and ground lima beans). Fit the activity to your child’s ability.
Have more than one child? Why not make it a group activity with everyone taking turns writing up a dish? Trust me, they’ll be so involved in thinking up the grossest thing they can come up with that they won’t even notice they’re writing!
Tags: homeschool, monster, teaching your child to write, writing
If you have little kids, you might be wondering when the right time to start them in school is. The quick and dirty answer is . . . it depends.
Everyone is different. Some families feel that early education is best, so they might start their children off at 3 or 4 with early childhood education activities. Others will prefer to wait until the child is ready and interested, which might not be until 7. And a huge number of families will start the school year closest to the 6th birthday, which tends to be the “traditional” time to start.
You’re the parent and you know your child best, so let your gut tell you what to do. If you KNOW your 5 year old just isn’t ready to start really studying, then wait. If your 3 year old is clamoring to learn to read and you feel great about it, go for it!
Personally, I’ve chosen to do some schooling with my young sons. The oldest is nearly 4 and since kids around here head off to nursery school at 3, my husband was pretty adamant that we start at 3. We’ve kept it pretty low key though and things are going well. Apart from my husband wanting to do this, I was a child of parents who waited for the “right” age and I recall being horribly frustrated because I wanted so badly to read, but my mother told me I had to wait until the September after my 6th birthday . . . which was in April. I think I could have easily begun reading two years earlier because I wanted to so much, but as it was, it literally took just showing me the concept and I was off! I don’t want my own children to be that frustrated with NOT being able to learn.
However, it really is up to each family to make that decision. Your own experiences and the differences in your children will help you make the decision.